


Fireflies Behind the Red Door

by CaptainYubaba



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Daenerys Deserved Better, Essos, F/M, alternative ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19254310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainYubaba/pseuds/CaptainYubaba
Summary: Daenerys experiences spring.





	Fireflies Behind the Red Door

**_Fireflies Behind the Red Door_ **

* * *

 

Spring came to Braavos along with the warm winds that sent the scent of the ocean from the shores to the rest of the city. Daenerys had escaped to such a place with the children, having with her only a few books about the histories of the known lands and some with fairy tales for the boys to be put to sleep.

At night the whole city would be flushed with fireflies, from the evening hours when the sun turned the sky different shades of deep orange to the ungodly hours when the stars were the only thing to rival the specs of light that floated under the lemon trees.

The stone paved streets which would be filled to the brim with dust throughout the day, the harbours offering their hospitality to foreigners and traders from far away lands, the essence of lemons and the sea making the residents wish for the eternal summer to finally arrive, the whores sitting by their windows chuckling while they downed their rum filled cups, the beggars and the drunk with their hats lowered to cover their faces from the sun leaning on the yellow brick walls of the Braavosi buildings as their fingers played with the strings of their harps while slow hums escaped their lips, and then there were the fireflies. These things were all very Braavosi and though everyone was expecting summer soon, Daenerys would have been content with a spring that would last forever set in the routine of a peaceful life that the city had offered to her.

She had come to this city made for spring in order to find her home and to escape her past which was so distant to her now that she could hardly remember it at all. There were no traces of that life anyway and her memory had been slightly tinkered with her experience with death. She did not know why the Lord of Light had brought her back in exchange for the life of her last dragon but she knew she would spend her second chance at finding her home - the one with the red door and the lemon trees. The only reminder of that past filled with loss and suffering had been Daario Naharis.

He had found her in the Shadow Lands, where the first snowflake had fallen in her palm making her think of that dreadful day when she stood before the Iron Throne or the distant memory of the wind and the snow matching her hair while she rode her dragon in the northern lands where winter would never end. The truth was she had almost forgotten about Daario up until then. But now Daenerys had followed him to Braavos with the children in order to heal herself and perhaps the city. 

She looked for the house with the red door, the children cradled at her breast throughout the entire journey. When they found a residence, abandoned by an older trader who had apparently set sail for the Summer Islands after a fortune teller bid him to do so, Daenerys was happy with it. It wasn’t as grand as the big palaces she had spent her former lifetime in, but it was warmer and cozier than all of them combined and with a view that would drive away any sort of sorrow. The children liked it too. There was a garden filled with greenery and a marbled fence overlooking the shores and the harbor. It took them two years to finally fix it to their liking and it took Daario two days to paint the door in a bright red color, a pleasant one and an inviting one.

The days in Braavos were carefree. Sometimes Daenerys and the children would sit by the balconies, their feet dangling down as they observed the pirates and the strange men that arrived in the city. Other times, they would wander around the street, chatting with the vendors or listening to the stories of wise-looking men and women that had traveled there from afar. They would all be startled by her appearance, her silver hair and her curious appearance; as if she were a child herself. If they knew she was Daenerys Targaryen, they said nothing. It didn’t matter anymore because the dragons were gone. Most days, in any case, Daenerys opened her home to the orphans and children of Braavos who came to her and she read to them while they sat with her in the garden, the trees providing the necessary shade. By night-time, Daario would come home and the children would tell him about what they would want to do with their lives. Ydris wanted to be a warrior, like Daario himself. Daenerys thought about the warriors in her previous life and her smile would falter a little. Valtaer wanted to be a pirate, or a traveler so that he could be free forever and wander all around the world. Daenerys thought about the children’s actual father who had been a sailor and how he drowned at sea while his wife waited for him and she didn’t feel like smiling at all anymore. Their mother, Ismene, had found an early death because of the sorrow her husband’s loss had caused her. The children had been so little that Daenerys would have never willed herself to abandon them, not after having found a friend in Ismene after all her years in solitude. Now that the boys were growing, she could see her friend’s face in both of them. Their olive shaded skins, their green eyes, and sand-colored hair. Whenever she saw them running around the shores, on the days the sun burned too hot for them to bear, she would feel her heart skip a beat at how much they looked like their mother. The way the seawater made their hair glisten, or their grins under the sun. Daario grew to care for them as well, especially their curiosity about anything to do with him and his life.

“I saw dragons once!” He would tell them, “But their mother was by far the most wondrous sight of all!” And he would look at her with that adoration she had sought after her entire life. A family and someone to love her no matter what. The worries that the children would grow up and eventually leave her would be silenced then because she thought at least she would have Daario with her, to grow old with and wait for them to come back. They could sit just like the children, at the balcony during night-time, waiting for all the ships that would pass by. 

Daenerys now spent her days chasing fireflies with her children, clad in her silky spring dresses, her hair free of the warrior braids, the sense of dread gone from within her as she found reason after reason to smile. She was just a girl now, living surrounded by the fireflies behind the red door with her worries dead across the Narrow Sea to her west. Under her window, a peasant passed on top of a mule, chanting an old work song...

 


End file.
